Phinergy and Alcoa demoed a zero-emissions electric demo car powered with lithium ion batters with supplemental power from an aluminum-air battery at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal during the Canadian International Aluminum Conference last week (June 3-4).
Alcoa and Phinergy have partnered to market the aluminum-air battery, which can extend the distance an electric car travels by approximately 1,000 miles. The companies outfitted a Citroen C1 with Phinergy aluminum-air batteries extending the range to 1,000 miles
With the extra mileage EVs could travel as fast as gas-powered cars, the batteries use air and water to get energy from aluminum. So your old recycled soda cans could help run the EV of the future.
The aluminum batteries are light weight and are used a supplemental source of energy to extend range of traditional lithium ion EV batteries.. The only fuel need is water that has to added every few hundred miles. The batteries last a long time too, with a shelf life of 20 to 30 years and can be easily recycled like beverage cans. There are zero emission emitted from the aluminum air batteries.
According to Phinergy, just one of the 50 aluminum plates in the battery can power a car for approximately 20 miles, and when used to supplement a lithium-ion battery, can extend vehicle range by approximately 1,000 miles.
Phinergy claims the technology allows a greater energy density than conventional battery technologies and creates electric vehicles with travel distances, purchase prices and life-cycle costs that are comparable to fossil-fuel cars. Previous reports suggested that these batteries will not commercially available until 2017.